


After Action Report

by FoxGlade



Series: #hashtag 'verse [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BUT REALLY WHERE HAS CLINT EVEN BEEN, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Gen, Humor, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 22:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1405462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxGlade/pseuds/FoxGlade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[WINTER SOLDIER SPOILERS]</p><p>“JARVIS has been in the SHIELD system since New York, I am a literal genius hacker, and I didn’t even know about HYDRA infiltrating until twitter told me?”</p><p>“What’s twitter?” Steve asks, face perfectly innocent. Tony makes a distressed noise.</p><p>“Don’t worry your precious antique head over it, Cap, although while we’re speaking of technology and your various problems with it, you didn’t think to call? Maybe just once? Real quick, thirty seconds tops, little bit of a warning before Helicarriers came crashing out of the atmosphere?”</p><p>“I’m still having trouble with my phone,” Steve lies. Screw Natasha, he’s great at this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Action Report

**Author's Note:**

> so we saw the early screening of Winter Soldier, and of course we dared each other to be the first to post fic for it online. this may become a series, because what can i say, the movie inspired me.

Two days after the shitshow that was SHIELD’s utter destruction, Steve shows up at Stark Tower in an offensively tight hoodie, politely asking if he could see Tony Stark please, no, don’t go to any trouble, ma’am, I don’t mind waiting.

“I keep wondering, Steve, my patriotic friend, why I found out about all of this on _twitter_ ,” Tony says, attempting to sling on arm over Steve’s shoulder as they walk to the elevator. Tony is about half a foot shorter than Steve, so it ends up being more of an awkward pat on one shoulder. “JARVIS has been in the SHIELD system since New York, I am a literal genius hacker, and I didn’t even know about HYDRA infiltrating until _twitter_ told me?”

“What’s twitter?” Steve asks, face perfectly innocent. Tony makes a distressed noise and punches the button for the top floor.

“Don’t worry your precious antique head over it, Cap, although while we’re speaking of technology and your various problems with it, you didn’t think to call? Maybe just once? Real quick, thirty seconds tops, little bit of a warning before Helicarriers came crashing out of the atmosphere?”

“I’m still having trouble with my phone,” Steve lies. Screw Natasha, he’s great at this.

“I will make you a new phone. I will make you a phone tailored to your specific and very sad needs,” Tony says. Steve hums along to the music playing in the elevator. It’s soft and jazzy – he tunes out Tony to appreciate it. “Because it is, you know, slightly important when you’re trying to save the world that you communicate with other people who, coincidentally, can help you save the world.”

“I had people,” Steve replies. “Good people. Real fun crowd, not too flashy.”

“Oh, I see how it is. No love for the guy who literally built you your own floor in his own tower, out of the goodness of his heart, made with blood, sweat, and-“

“Nope,” Steve says cheerfully, popping the ‘p’ in time with the _ding_ the elevator makes as the doors open. He strolls into an open space kitchen/living/dining room, leaving Tony behind, gaping unattractively.

“Clear the deck, the Star Spangled Man with a Plan is back, and he finally learned how to talk smack like a real person!” Tony calls out, scurrying after him. Steve surveys the space, notes the TV turned to a 24 hour news channel, currently (and predictably) broadcasting footage from DC. The scrolling banner more or less amounts to a laundry list of the most pertinent facts revealed by the massive info bomb dropped upon the unsuspecting internet.

A hand pokes up from the couch and waves. When Steve gets close enough, he sees familiar spiked hair and a less familiar, but completely unsurprising, baggy, garishly purple hoodie.

“’Sup, Cap,” Clint says, scrolling through a webpage on his phone and ignoring the news. “You got any idea what Nat’s up to? She hasn’t answered her phone in like, a million years. I’d be worried if she hadn’t been splashed all over every news outlet in the world.” True to his word, the channel immediately cut away to the footage of Natasha leaving the hearing, small smile firmly in place.

“I’m not sure, but I think it may have been exploded,” Steve replies. He moves to sit at one of the couch, and Clint obligingly lifts his feet so he can perch with his hands clasped on his knees. “I was a bit busy at the time.”

He hears a blender start up in the kitchen area and hopes Stark doesn’t set anything on fire. Clint looks at him, properly for the first time since he arrived. “Are you okay?” he asks. The switch from his previous brevity to solemn sobriety is a bit jarring, and Steve’s reminded suddenly that he and Natasha worked together for years, at SHIELD. SHIELD, which no longer even exists.

It’s been a long week, and it catches up to him all at once. “Yeah,” he says, slouching in his seat. “I… I have a plan. I know what to do. It’ll be fine,” he concludes. “Probably.”

“If you say so,” Clint replies doubtfully. He dips a hand into a frankly ridiculously sized bag of crisps and munches on them loudly, then offers him the bag. Steve politely declines. “It’s just, Nat texted me about the whole Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes thing, and I mean, it’s not like Stark’s the type to lend a sympathetic ear, and believe me, Banner is _not_ as good at it as you’d think. So. I volunteer as a tribute?” he finishes weakly.

Steve sits in silence for a while, studying his hands. Eventually, he looks up at Clint’s earnest expression. “She texted you? About a highly delicate, classified op? Seriously?”

Clint throws up his hands and groans. “Try to be a nice guy,” he mutters, then rummages around in the pocket of his hoodie before pulling out a phone identical to Natasha’s. He presses a few buttons and then shows Steve the screen.

“ **WS actually CA’s best guy bucky?? small world huh** ” it reads. The number is saved as “Baby Momma”. Steve, after a few moments contemplation, decides that discretion is the better part of valour, and doesn’t ask. Instead, he asks JARVIS to up the volume of the TV a little more, and settles in to see how the rest of the world is dealing with his mess.

\---

“Where were you during all of this?” Steve asks Clint the next morning over the French toast Clint whipped up. It’s pretty amazing. “You’re pretty high up the SHIELD ladder, shouldn’t you have been in the thick of it with us?”

It’s not like he thinks Clint is some sort of HYDRA agent, but he hasn’t exactly made himself visible lately. Come to think of it, he’s pretty sure this is the first time he’s seen Clint since he’d driven off with Natasha after sending off Loki and Thor.

“Called in a sick day a couple of hours before Fury got attacked,” Clint says with a shrug, throwing another piece of soaked bread in the pan. It sizzles satisfyingly. “Figured I’d best lie low when we all got the standard condolence email. Then you’re all over the news getting your ass kicked by some high-tech ghost assassin, Helicarriers are dropping like flies; thought to myself, maybe Stark’ll know what to do. I get here and he’s going on about hashtags or whatever. You know he told me, I quote, ‘Make like your name and tweet, Barton, why do I have to drag all these technophobes into the 21st century, jeez’.”

“And I stand by that quote,” Tony interrupts, shambling in. He grabs the pot of coffee Clint had brewed and pours all of what’s left of it into a mug that’s the size of Steve’s bicep. “Whatever that quote was. I’m not really awake right now, systems processing on limited capacity. What are we talking about?”

“I was just asking where Clint’s been, this past week,” Steve says, chewing on a slice of bread. It really is amazing – if the rest of Clint’s cooking is this good, he’ll agree to move in on the spot. Tony points at him with the mug, sloshing a little over the side.

“Good question, Steve Carlsberg. No, I’m sorry, eve you don’t deserve to be called that.” Steve shoots a confused look at Clint and gets a firm ‘don’t ask’ gesture in return. He momentarily regrets leaving his “Things I’m Confused About” notebook with him and mentally adds “Steve Carlsberg” to the list. “Where have you been these past few months, Birdbrain?” Tony continues, clearly on a roll now. “Specifically, when I was in my time of trial, Mandarin, president being kidnapped, that whole happy happenstance? Where were you, Spangles? And Red too, I guess. Or even the whole damn SHIELD operation! They couldn’t have even sent, I dunno, some paper pushers to help out? Why the hell was I left out in the cold?!”

The silence in the kitchen was only broken by the sizzling of French toast on the stove. Clint shook the pan a little, then carefully used a spatula to flip it onto the serving plate. “Well, I dunno about SHIELD, but I was scuba diving in Spain,” he says, completely straight-faced. Tony stares at him for a few seconds, then narrows his eyes.

“You’re fucking with me, I know you are,” he says, but the edge of hysteria is gone from his voice. Clint grins and starts cleaning down the cooking area.

“Hell yes I am, you think when I go to Spain I have time to take a goddamn snorkel? I mean, maybe if I’m dodging bullets on my way to a secret underwater lair, but that hasn’t happened in years,” he says, waving a hand dismissively. Tony opens his mouth again but Clint heads him off by continuing, “We got bigger problems than you, buddy. What’s a threat to the president of good ol’ US of A when there’s a planned attack on a summit meeting hosing leaders of eight different nations? How do you figure we triage a few bomb threats that Tony Stark is handling when the entirety of the Asian continent as well as Eastern Europe is under imminent threat from a hyper deadly air-born pathogen? We figured you had it covered. That’s how SHIELD works, dumbass – we come into FUBAR situations and make them a little less FUBAR. Well,” he adds, “that’s what we used to do, anyway. SHIELD’s out of business now. Damn.”

There’s a respectful silence in which they individually contemplate the effect SHIELD has had on each of their lives, and how their lives will now be different, in ways infinitesimal and glaringly enormous, because of its absence

“Wouldn’t have said no to a little help from my so-called teammates,” Tony mumbles petulantly.

“Me and Nat were on the other side of the world, literally, and Steve was out road-tripping from Bumfuck, Texas, to Asscrack of Nowhere, Alaska,” Clint points out sensibly. “Banner was god knows where, probably saving orphan babies in the Congo or some noble shit like that.”

“I get the point, Angry Bird,” Tony says. He throws back the last of his coffee like it’s a shot, then stands. “Try not to destroy my house while I go do genius things with my loyal and loveable genius friend.”

After Tony struts out, Steve helps Clint clean up, thinking about how the world is going to get along without its silent protector now, and how the public will react in the long term to the knowledge of what had been going on behind the scenes for so long, and where on Earth he would start looking for Bucky, and how he’ll deal with him when he actually finds him. Then, he thinks about why Natasha could possibly be named as “Baby Momma” in Clint’s phone, and how Tony and Bruce are probably doing something that could kill them all instantly _right now_ , and how he should probably get working on his “Things I’m Confused About” notebook if he has any hope of keeping up a conversation with Clint and/or Tony. But mostly, he thinks about how he has time now, and he’s damn well going to use it right.

“Think you could teach me how to cook?” he says out loud. Clint looks up from the soapy dishes in the sink (and somewhere, Tony feels a little pain in his arc reactor that someone is ignoring the impressive and undoubtedly expensive washing machine two feet to his left, Steve is sure) and gives him a once over. Steve does his best to appear earnest. “I only know a couple of basic dinners, nothing fancy,” he says. “You seem like you know your way around a stove.”

Clint continues to give him a discerning (and unnerving) look, only for his expression to change into something near pleased. “Damn straight I do,” he says proudly. “By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be cooking confi and blue with the best of them.” He dries his hands on a dish towel and gets a shrewd look in his eye. “Any reason you’re asking?”

“I like to have busy hands,” Steve says honestly. Maybe Natasha was right about him being a terrible liar; in any case, he’s much better at telling the truth. So he takes a deep breath and continues, “And I might like to take you up on that offer to talk, sometime.”

The kitchen is light and open, and lingering with the smell of meals long since eaten. It seems like as good a place as any to spill his guts. “Any time you want, Cap,” Clint says, clapping him on the shoulder and heading back to the living room. “In the meantime, you wanna watch Fox news’s take on the situation? It’ll be hilarious, trust me.”

And the funny thing is, Steve does.


End file.
